


and Death followed with him

by ProwlingThunder



Series: The Everlasting List of Shenanigans [218]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Death, Doctors & Physicians, Gen, Plague, Red Plague (The Arcana), Sickness, The Lazaret (The Arcana)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 03:54:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18380447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: Inside there are the ill and injured. The ocean surrounding the Lazaret is still cold, at least.





	and Death followed with him

**Author's Note:**

> _That Writing Place_ Weekly Drabble Theme: Elements

The ocean surrounding the Lazaret is still cold, at least, and clean enough for all that it washes away. It's a blessing on my blistered feet, even though the saltwater stings in my wounds. It helps though. Being out here.

Inside there are the ill and injured, the dying and the dead, more and more people every day, it seems. I know Doctor Jules is studying for a cure at the palace, but there's no more ground to bury anybody, and the last shipment of supplies brought us new ovens and a room for something less benign grew off the old building like a cancer. Even now the smoke carries the taste of ash.

I don't know how the nurses can stand it. The heat that drifts into the clinic is now just another side effect of the plague that makes the patients more uncomfortable, already hot and sweating from their sickness, and leaves me roasting in coat and mask whenever I take my shift.

It probably helps they're not Vesuvian. They're not watching their neighbors and friends die. That... probably helps.

...a little girl asked me today if it would be cold when she died. I don't remember now what I told her. I hope it brought her some measure of comfort anyway.

I let the surf lap at me and try to think about anything but that last conversation. Not easily done, unfortunately. There's no rhyme or reason for the plague that anyone can puzzle out, no comprehension for why it sickens one person and passes another. I've asked the cards many a question, but the Arcana are quiet on all which surround the plague.

Perhaps I'm not meant to know that answer, either, just as the little girl wasn't.

I don't think she was cold. We ran out of places to bury our dead, after all, and so her body burned instead. We tucked dust and bone beneath harder soil, near where all the children's remnants are. Maybe they'll be cold. Maybe they'll rest, or play together.

The ocean neither forgives nor condemns. But it salts my wounds, and tells no one when I bow my head and cry, or send up a silent prayer. Death wasn't the end. It was a beginning, a rebirth. But the city didn't deserve this.

_Please, Doctor Jules. Find a cure for them soon._


End file.
